Demolition crews bring down Houston skyscraper

  HOUSTON -- It didn't take long -- mere seconds, in fact -- to create a new hole in the skyline of the Texas Medical Center.

Demolition crews used high explosives to implode the 20-story former Prudential Building that had been a landmark of the district landscape southwest of downtown Houston since 1952.

The crews had planned initially to touch off the explosives shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday, but dense fog delayed the series of blasts until 11:15 a.m.

The Prudential Insurance Co. of America built the 500,000-square-foot skyscraper to serve as its southwest regional headquarters. The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center bought the building in 1974 and made it the center's main building in 1980 before vacating and closing the building in April 2010.

A master plan for the area calls for a new clinical building that will connect to the Duncan Building and Mays Clinic.

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Houston skyscraper set for implosion Sunday

  HOUSTON -- A big boom has been scheduled Sunday morning in Houston to bring down a 20-story building.

The former Prudential Life Insurance Building faces demolition.

The Houston Chronicle reported Friday that Prudential Insurance Co. commissioned architect Kenneth Franzheim to design a stylish regional headquarters.

The skyscraper, on the current Texas Medical Center campus, opened in 1952. New Jersey-based Prudential sold the building in 1975.

The structure is being razed to make way for new facilities.

A $4 million ranch life mural by artist Peter Hurd, called "The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare for It," has been removed from the building and will be part of a public library in Artesia, N.M.

Hurd, who died in 1984, once had a studio in Artesia.

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